


The One I Had to Meet

by schehrezade2005



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 16:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1233937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schehrezade2005/pseuds/schehrezade2005
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of short stories about the modern companions before they began their adventures with The Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Something More

Mickey, Jackie, and Rose sat around the table in their small flat enjoying the last of the Chinese food.

"You have to work again tomorrow?" Mickey asked.

"Yeah," Rose mused as she poked into the takeout box to retrieve the last stray noodle of chow mein. "Shame really, having a day off and then go back to work again."

"Why don't you find something else, then?" Jackie asked her daughter as she brushed her blond hair out of her face. Rose sighed; she'd hoped she wouldn't have to have this conversation again. "There's so many other things out there."

"No way. The job's not so bad, really. Same thing every day. Predictable."

Mickey took Rose's small white hand in his chocolate one. "Well, if you ever wanted to do anything else, we're here for you."

Rose smiled at him and the two shared a brief kiss. "You better."

"Of course I am," Mickey smiled. "I know what will make you feel better: take a fortune cookie." He reached for one of the three cookies in the middle of the table.

"How's that going to make her feel better?" Jackie asked. "Everyone knows those fortunes are rubbish."

"Exactly. They're funny. They take your mind off things."

Rose smiled and took one of the two cookies left. "Okay then, let's see," she said as she tore the package and cracked its contents into two neat halves. She pulled the little sleep of paper out of the left half and smoothed it as she put the right half in her mouth.

The fortune read: An alien of some sort will be appearing to you shortly!

"'An alien of some sort will be with you shortly!'?" she read. "That doesn't even make any sense." 

"Rather odd for a fortune," Jackie frowned. "Aren't they just supposed to say things like 'Good luck is coming your way' or 'You will make a wise investment' or something like that?"

"Usually," Rose frowned at the little paper. 

"What's yours say, Mickey?"

"'Don't just think, act!'" he read.

"Well, that's rubbish too. You'd think they'd be able to come up with better fortunes than that," Jackie said as she took the last cookie and opened it. "'You will prosper in the next month'. That's more like it!" she smiled. "Now, let's clean this up so we can go watch telly."

Jackie took the takeout boxes, stacked them together and went through the swinging door to the kitchen. Rose was still staring at her fortune.

"You don't really believe these do you?" she asked Mickey. "You don't really think that some alien could just drop into London out of the sky?"

Mickey crunched thoughtfully on his cookie. "Nah. Like I said, they're just for fun. You can't take them seriously."

"I suppose you're right," Rose sighed as she tossed the little paper into the trash pile. "Just seems too...specific."

"I think whoever writes those things must be going batty."

Rose shrugged. "Eh, you're right. Nothing to worry about." The two stood up from the table and gathered the rest of the trash and plates. "But if something does drop out of the sky...."

"It won't!" Mickey laughed. "I won't let some alien take you away without a fight."

Rose laughed. "You would fight an alien?"

"Course I would! You don't think I could take on one of those little green men?"

"No, No, I'm sure you could."

"Are you two still on about those aliens?" Jackie poked her head in from the kitchen. "It's all nonsense if you ask me. Clean the rest of this up, come on! I don't want to miss the show."

Rose rolled her eyes and smiled as she went into the kitchen to finish cleaning up dinner, depositing her worries deep in the back of her mind. Besides, aliens weren't even real; it was just something made up by people who wanted to believe that there was other life out there, wasn't it?

***

Rose woke up at seven thirty the next morning and went to work where she had a completely ordinary day until she had to take the lottery money to the basement. Then the plastic dummies began to attack her and a strange man with short-cropped hair and a leather jacket appeared at her side, took her hand, and told her to run.


	2. Two Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Martha and Tish go for lunch and an interesting fortune sparks a conversation

"No way, he did not say that!" Martha squeaked at her sister and took another bite of her orange chicken. She was out for lunch with Tish at a little hole-in-the-wall Chinese food place near the Eye.

"It's true. Mum was seething," Tish said stabbing at her rice. "Dad was insistent about bringing Annalise to the party. And he was just going on about it..."

Martha rolled her eyes. "That's Dad. We all knew it was going to happen."

"Yeah, but you know Mum's going to have a fit..."

Yes, Martha knew all too well what was going to happen: she was going to have to play peacekeeper and hope that her family listened. Martha shook her head; that was never going to happen.

"Can we not talk about Mum and Dad for a second? What's going on with the job?" Martha interrupted.

"Oh, right. Going real well. Had an interview yesterday."

"Tish, that's great!"

"It is, isn't it? Wouldn't it be great if I could work in the Prime Minister's office?"

"That'd be pretty nice," Martha nodded. "You'd be in where all the action happens."

"You think?" Tish smiled as the waitress brought the check and two fortune cookies. Both girls reached for the check.

"Let me get it," Martha smiled.

"Oh no, let me. You have exams coming up."

"I can still pay for lunch."

"No, no," Tish said as she took the paper. "My treat. You can get it another time."

Martha bit her lip as she reached for a cookie, opened the package, and broke the contents into two neat halves. She raised an eyebrow as she pulled out the fortune and smoothed out the little strip of paper.

It read: An alien of some sort will be appearing to you shortly!

"What's yours say?" Tish asked. "Mine says, 'A new job will give you new opportunities'."

"'An alien of some sort will be appearing to you shortly'...whatever that means."

"Alien? Like the spaceship over London? Like the star in the sky at Christmas alien?"

Martha shook her head. "Who knows? But these things are never real, right?"  
Tish laughed. "Mine better be real! Otherwise I'm going to have to move back in with Mum."

"Suppose not..." Martha sighed. "But if there are aliens out there and one does come to me, I hope it's the nice kind and not the we've-come-for-your-brains kind."

***

Two days later, Martha went to work at the Royal Hope Hospital and encountered a man with gelled brown hair in a pinstriped suit that stopped her, took off his tie, and then disappeared into the crowd. She didn't think much of it until she saw the same man, Mr. Smith, in a bed, waiting to be examined for abdominal pain. When she was asked to listen to his heart, she heard two heartbeats; he had two hearts.


	3. Spaceman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donna Noble didn't think much of aliens or adventure...until she met The Doctor.

"It's so nice to be having dinner with the family all together," Sylvia Noble smiled as she took a bite of her curried chicken and looked around the table at her husband, her daughter, and the soon to be son-in-law.

"Yes, this is nice isn't it?" Geoffrey Noble said without looking up from his plate of rice.

"It would have been nicer if it wasn't takeout," Donna mumbled as she pushed s stray piece of her red hair out of her face.

"Donna, don't start," Sylvia sighed.

"Why couldn't we have gone out to a nice restaurant instead of take out?" Donna glared at her mother.

"You're getting married in a few weeks! We have to find ways to save a few pounds!"

"You're such a penny-pincher!"

"Donna, don't speak that way to your mother!" Geoffrey looked up from his dinner.

"She started it," Donna groaned. Lance took Donna's hand under the table and smiled at her.

"Let it go, babe," he said. "Nothing wrong with saving some money. Leaves us more for the honeymoon."

"Suppose you're right," she smiled. "I do want to have something to spend on souvenirs."

"That's my girl," Geoffrey Noble smiled and patted his daughter's other hand that was resting on the table before pulling it away and continuing with his meal. 

Donna stared at the dregs of the Chinese food on her plate, trying to decide if there was any of the meal left to eat. She knew she shouldn't eat so much so that she could fit into her wedding dress, and there was more than half of the plate still full, but it seemed a shame to waste so much food. But she also knew that she would never hear the end of it from her mother if she finished the plate or didn't finish it.

"Something on your mind, dear?" Lance asked, interrupting her thoughts.

"Just that I'm full. Let's see about one of those fortune cookies, eh?" she asked, reaching toward the pile of wrapped packages in the middle of the table and selecting one. She eagerly pulled off the wrapper, broke the cookie in two, and pulled out the little slip of paper.

"'An alien of some sort will be appearing to you shortly!'" she read. "What sort of fortune is that?" She looked over at Lance. "Aliens? Really?"

"It's possible," Lance reasoned. "What about the spaceship in the sky last Christmas?"

Donna shook her head. "No, I was nursing a hangover."

"What about all of that nonsense with the flying things in the sky a few months ago?"

"We weren't in country a few months ago; how could I have seen that?"

Lance stared at her.

"But surely you heard about it," Sylvia said. "Huge debacle! It was all over the news! They're calling it the Battle of Canary Wharf!"

Donna frowned. "No..."

Lance continued to stare at her.

"No matter, really. These fortunes are just rubbish anyhow. No sense in taking them seriously," Donna shook her head. "You going to clean this up then?" she asked her mother. "Lance and I are going round to his place." She got up abruptly from the table, dragging Lance with her.

***

Donna didn't think any more about the fortune; she had her wedding on Christmas Eve to think about, after all. Then as she was walking down the aisle, she vanished into the air and found herself in a place called the T.A.R.D.I.S floating through space with a man calling himself The Doctor. 

After he saved her from alien spiders, dropped her back home, and flown off again, Donna promised herself she would travel. But when she did, it was nothing like the excitement of being with him. So she started searching for him, waiting for him, hoping to one day she would see The Doctor again. And just by chance, when she posed as a Health and Safety Inspector to investigate Adipose Industries, she saw him through the window of an office door, hanging in a window cleaner's cage, and she knew she had finally found her spaceman.


	4. Looking to the Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amy's still waiting for her magic Doctor, but Rory thinks it might be time to give up.

Amy and Rory had taken a couple of days off to drive to London to visit his mum and dad after they got engaged and the two were taking advantage of the nice weather to explore the city. They had stopped for lunch at a little Chinese food place near the Houses of Parliament. Everything seemed perfect until the waitress brought the bill and the fortune cookies.

Rory reached for one cookie and handed the other to Amy, who grinned and opened the little package. She cracked the cookie in two, read the little fortune and frowned.

"What's it say?" he asked as he opened his own cookie.

"'An alien of some sort will be with you shortly!'" she read in her Scottish lilt. "What's yours say?"

"'You will soon embark on a grand adventure in far off places.'"

"Well, it's more realistic than mine." She tugged gently on the ends of the paper, lost in thought.

Rory noticed she didn't seem to be shaking it off. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"You can't tell me it's nothing. You look like you just got some bad news."

Amy shook her head. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Rory leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "Just tell me."

"It's just...maybe if an alien did appear, the Doctor would come back."

There was a long pause.

"Amy..." Rory started.

She shook her head. "I know you think I'm just silly, but he was here...he did come back."

"Yes, and then he left without so much as a goodbye or a come with me, or whatever it was you thought he was going to say to you." He realized he had raised his voice and he took a breath to lower his volume. "I hate to say it, but he broke his promise."

"But you believe me now: he is real," she said quietly.

"Yes, I do believe that, and I've apologized for that, but...I just think that maybe...maybe he isn't coming back this time."

Amy looked up at him, shocked. "Why would you say that?"

"Well, be reasonable. It was just chance that he came back to save the world two years ago...."

"He told me he would be back!" she insisted. "He said, 'just a five minute jump into the future'. He promised he would come back!"

Amy realized that she had balled up her fists in her lap and there was a lump in her throat. Rory stared at her and bit his lip.

"But it's been twelve years since he said that," Rory said gently.

"Fourteen," Amy mumbled.

"And he's told you that twice now. So what makes you think he's really going to come back?"

"He promised. He's the Doctor and...I trust him..."

Rory looked for a moment like he was going to continue the argument but instead pursed his lips, leaned back in his chair, and checked the time on his phone. "We should get going if we want to be back by dark."

Amy nodded silently. She picked up the little slip of paper, staring at it once more before tearing it into tiny pieces and scattering them angrily on her plate. It was wishful thinking, she knew, to believe that the Doctor would come back. But there was a tiny part of her, the memory of her younger self sitting on the suitcase in the garden until dawn, that was still hoping and waiting.

***

Amy had almost given up waiting. She had been waiting for fourteen years and he had not come back for her. Then she heard the noise, that same noise she had heard the night she had prayed to Santa to send someone to fix the crack in her wall, the same noise she had heard in her garden two years ago. But she knew it was him and he was real; her magic Doctor had come back, and she wasn't going to be left behind again.


End file.
